RM Education is the principal division of RM plc, a British company that specialises in providing information technology products and services to educational organisations and establishments. Its key market is
UK education
Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments: the UK Government is responsible for England; whilst the Scottish Government, the Welsh ...
including schools, colleges, universities, government education departments and educational agencies.
The company was founded in 1973 as Research Machines Limited. , RM plc employs around 1,700 people, the majority based in the company's headquarters located on
Milton Park
Milton Park is a mixed use business and technology park in Oxfordshire, England, operated by MEPC plc.
It is just south of the village of Milton, about west of Didcot. It is on the site of a former Ministry of Defence depot between the A ...
, near
Didcot, Oxfordshire
Didcot ( ) is a railway town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, east of Wantage and north west of Reading. The town is noted for its railway heritage, ...
. RM also has offices across the United Kingdom (Cheshire, Nottinghamshire, Lanarkshire and London) and a
software development
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...
facility in India.
History
The company was founded in 1973 as Research Machines Limited in Oxford, England, by
Mike Fischer
Mike David Fischer CBE is the co-founder of the computer company RM plc.
Fischer graduated with a physics degree from Oxford University. In 1973, with Mike O'Regan (who had an economics degree from Cambridge), Fischer co-founded Research Machi ...
and
Mike O'Regan, respectively graduates of
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and
Cambridge Universities. Initially it traded under the name Sintel as a mail-order supplier of electronic components, mainly dealing with the hobbyist market.
With the arrival of microprocessors in the mid-1970s, the company expanded into the design and manufacturing of microcomputers. The company shipped its first computer in 1977 to a customer in a
Local Education Authority
Local education authorities (LEAs) were local councils in England that are responsible for education within their jurisdiction. The term was used to identify which council (district or county) is locally responsible for education in a system wit ...
and has been involved with educational computing ever since.
In the 1980s RM and its rival
Acorn Computers
Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's ...
sold thousands of computers to schools in the UK as part of the government's
Microelectronics Education Programme
The UK government's Microelectronics Education Programme ran from 1980 to 1986. It was conceived and planned by a Labour government and set up under a Conservative government during Mrs Thatcher's era. Its aim was to explore how computers coul ...
. A key model of the time was RM's
Z80
The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...
-based
RML 380Z
The Research Machines 380Z (often called the RML 380Z or RM 380Z) was an early 8-bit microcomputer produced by Research Machines in Oxford, England, from 1977 to 1985.
Description
The 380Z used a Z80 microprocessor (hence the name) with up to 56 ...
.
The company was invited to tender to supply the
BBC micro
The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...
but declined on grounds that it was not economically feasible to provide so many features at such a low price and to such a tight schedule.
The company floated on the London Stock Exchange in November 1994 under the name RM plc.
Mike Fischer was Chief Executive of the Group until 1997. He was succeeded by Richard Girling (1997–2002), Tim Pearson (2002–08), Terry Sweeney (2008–11), Rob Sirs (2011–12), Martyn Ratcliffe (2011–13) and David Brooks (2013–21).
In 2003 the company won the contract to deliver online tests for
Key Stage 3 ICT. Despite a pilot phase in 2005 involving 45,500 pupils that was judged a success by the
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) was a charity, and an executive non-departmental public body (NDPB) of the Department for Education. In England and Northern Ireland, the QCDA maintained and developed the National Cu ...
the government cancelled the contract in 2007, shortly before their scheduled introduction.
Cuts in the budgets of UK educational establishments in 2011 damaged RM's revenues, leading it to shed hundreds of employees and sell less profitable parts of its business.
RM ceased production of computers towards the end of 2013.
Business structures
RM classifies its business into three areas:
RM Education
The division that deals with technology infrastructure, software and services – including interactive classroom equipment, connectivity, networking software, school management software and support services.
RM Resources
This division focuses on products for use in the learning curriculum, primarily from TTS, a company acquired in 2004 and Consortium, a company acquired in 2018.
RM previously offered products from other classroom resources firms it had acquired:
*SpaceKraft Ltd – developer and manufacturer of a range of sensory products. Acquired in 2007, sold back to original owners in 2016.
*DACTA Ltd – distributor of educational products from
LEGO
Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...
, TOLO and
BRIO. Acquired in 2007 and sold in 2012.
*ISIS Concepts Ltd – a UK furniture manufacturer. Acquired in 2009 and sold in 2012.
RM Results
Deals with the process management and outsourcing for testing and qualifications; data analysis services for teachers, education managers and policy makers. Clients include
Cambridge Assessment
University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) is a non-teaching department of the University of Cambridge, which operates under the brand name Cambridge Assessment, and is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. It provi ...
and the
International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...
.
International operations
From the mid-1990s the company expanded overseas, with international revenues rising to 12% of the total group's revenue in 2009. A contraction in customer spending in RM's core UK education market and slow growth in the overseas businesses prompted it to divest several of them from 2010.
India
RM founded its subsidiary RM Education Solutions India in
Thiruvananthapuram
Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...
in 2003 to develop software and provide central corporate functions. In November 2016 it accounted for approximately 36% of the RM Group workforce.
Germany
In 1993 the company established a subsidiary in
Soest, Germany
Soest (, as if it were 'Sohst'; Westphalian: ''Saust'') is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Soest district.
Geography
Soest is located along the ''Hellweg'' road, approximately south-west of Lippstadt, ro ...
, in order to sell a localized version of RM Net LM, a turnkey Local Area Network product for schools, consisting of file-servers running Microsoft
LAN Manager
LAN Manager is a discontinued network operating system (NOS) available from multiple vendors and developed by Microsoft in cooperation with 3Com Corporation. It was designed to succeed 3Com's 3+Share network server software which ran atop a h ...
, client PCs running Microsoft
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0.
Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...
and including a suite of RM-developed network management applications. Despite a nationwide program of marketing seminars and three pilot sites, RM withdrew within two years.
United States
RM Educational Software, Inc. was established in 2005 to provide schools and districts in North America with many of the UK software products. It has been inactive since 2011.
In 2008 RM purchased and integrated the US interactive classroom provider Computrac and sold it at a loss in 2011.
Asia-Pacific
RM Asia-Pacific started operations in 1997. A head office was opened in Perth, Australia in February 1999 after being awarded a contract for schools information systems by the
Education Department of Western Australia
The Department of Education (WA) is the government department responsible for education in Western Australia as well as on Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The Department's head office, commonly referred to as 'Silver City' or ...
.
The company grew to employ 50 staff located in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Wellington (NZ), servicing over 4,000 schools across Australasia and in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei.
RM Asia-Pacific was sold to
Civica in 2011.
Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA)
In 2009 the company announced that it was expanding its business into the MENASA region with offices based in Dubai. The company stated that this would be a joint venture:
:"RM MENASA will, through subsidiaries licensed to trade in each country, provide educational ICT products and services to schools in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA). It will be the exclusive distributor of RM's learning technologies products in the MENASA region."
This venture was closed down after 12 months.
RM computers
![Link380z computer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Link380z_computer.jpg)
RM manufactured desktop and server computers in its Oxfordshire premises from 1978 until 2014.
The first model RM shipped was the
RML 380Z
The Research Machines 380Z (often called the RML 380Z or RM 380Z) was an early 8-bit microcomputer produced by Research Machines in Oxford, England, from 1977 to 1985.
Description
The 380Z used a Z80 microprocessor (hence the name) with up to 56 ...
, based on the
Z80
The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...
processor and
CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
operating system. This was followed in 1982 by the
Link 480Z, essentially a smaller, diskless 380Z with a simple networking capability, enabling it to use the file storage of a 'parent' 380Z via
CP/NET networking software and
Zilog
Zilog, Inc. is an American manufacturer of microprocessors and 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers. It is also a supplier of application-specific embedded system-on-chip (SoC) products.
Its most famous product is the Z80 series of 8-bit microp ...
Z-Net network hardware.
In 1985 RM released the
RM Nimbus
RM Nimbus was a range of personal computers from British company Research Machines (now RM Education) sold from 1985 until the early 1990s, after which the designation ''Nimbus'' was discontinued. The first of these computers, the RM Nimbus PC- ...
PC-186, a desktop computer using the
Intel 80186 processor, the forerunner of the
286 processor used in the
IBM PC/AT
The IBM Personal Computer/AT (model 5170, abbreviated as IBM AT or PC/AT) was released in 1984 as the fourth model in the IBM Personal Computer line, following the IBM PC/XT and its IBM Portable PC variant. It was designed around the Intel 80 ...
that defined 'PC compatibility' as a dominant standard for personal computers for decades to come. As the 80186 processor lacked its successor's
protected mode RM's computer was not truly PC compatible but could run some PC software and Microsoft Windows up to
3.0.
RM introduced its AX model in 1986, using the Intel 80286 processor. A common use for the AX was as a fileserver, connected to PC-186 clients using
MS-Net
MS-Net, sometimes stylized as MS-NET, was an early network operating system sold by Microsoft during the earliest days of local area networking (LANs).
Overview
MS-Net was not a complete networking system of its own; Microsoft licensed it to vend ...
, Microsoft's network operating system of the time and Z-Net hardware (later optionally via
Ethernet
Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
). Usually the PC-186 clients were diskless, booting via the network. Diskless client computers that loaded their operating system, applications and user data centrally from fileservers were common in UK education for a further decade, partially to avoid the cost of local storage devices such as hard disks, but also to protect system files, as the client Operating Systems
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
and Windows did not offer access control at the file system level until
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
introduced support for
NTFS
New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...
.
From the AX model onwards RM computers were PC compatible. The 'X Series' was supplemented by the VX, using the new, 32-bit 80386 processor, marketed as a standalone CAD workstation or network fileserver. RM released M Series computers, primarily used as diskless network clients, using the 80286 and later 80386 processors. These used the
Micro Channel architecture that featured in the
IBM PS/2
The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial p ...
, which was faster than the standard
ISA architecture, but failed to gain widespread acceptance. RM's fileserver platform became its 'E Series' computers, using the similarly short-lived
EISA architecture and using a tower case to allow space for multiple hard disks. These fileservers ran Microsoft
LAN Manager
LAN Manager is a discontinued network operating system (NOS) available from multiple vendors and developed by Microsoft in cooperation with 3Com Corporation. It was designed to succeed 3Com's 3+Share network server software which ran atop a h ...
(on Microsoft
OS/2
OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...
) preconfigured with client Operating System files (Windows 3.0 and later 3.1) for remote booting and bundled with RM-developed tools for managing network users, client PCs and applications. This was sold as RM Net LM.
The success of PC compatibility as a worldwide standard changed RM's focus from complete in-house design of circuit boards, peripherals and firmware to the assembly and integration of hardware components sourced predominantly from the Far East. The hardware within RM server and desktop PCs was no longer significantly different from mainstream PCs from other vendors.
In the mid-90s RM released the Window Box system which used Windows 95., as well as RM Connect, its turnkey network solution for education and successor to RM Net LM. RM Connect comprised Microsoft operating systems at the server (Windows NT and successors) and client (Windows 3.11, Windows 95 and successors), in-house coded tools for managing the network, a predefined software configuration and applications such as Microsoft Office. Diskless network client PCs were discontinued as the client operating system from Windows 95 onwards had become too large to transfer over the LAN to multiple PCs in a timely manner, so local hard disks were required. From version 2.4 RM Connect was renamed RM Community Connect.
In the new millennium RM offered laptops and tablets that bore its name. These were manufactured by Asus and others.
In 2013 RM ceased hardware manufacture to focus on software and services.
Software
The company offered a range of educational software including the Kaleidos
Virtual learning environment
A virtual learning environment (VLE) in educational technology is a web-based platform for the digital aspects of courses of study, usually within educational institutions. They present resources, activities, and interactions within a course stru ...
, MathsAlive, DiscoverAlive, Living Library and SuccessMaker, as well as an e-book library management system, RM Books, developed for the education market. They also package software titles from other companies to allow easy centralized installation on RM networks. In 2005 RM was awarded the contract for
Glow (formally known as Scottish Schools Digital Network (SSDN) National Intranet project). Under the five-year, £37.5 million project, all 32 Local Authorities, over 3,000 schools and over 800,000 education users plus parents had access to Glow.
RM Education's current proprietary software offerings are focused on cloud delivery – including RM Unify (IdP and SSO), RM Integris (School MIS), RM Finance, and RM Easimaths.
Staff
* Chief Executive Officer: Neil Martin
* Chief Financial Officer: Mark Berry
* Non-Executive Chairman: Helen Stevenson
References
External links
Official Group websiteRM EducationRM Resources (TTS)ConsortiumRM ResultsVT100.net historyRM on old-computers.comRM founder Mike Fischer talking about his approach to business*
EduGeek.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:RM Education
Companies based in Oxfordshire
Computer companies of the United Kingdom
Computer companies established in 1973
Computer science education in the United Kingdom
Science and technology in Oxfordshire
Software companies of the United Kingdom
Vale of White Horse
1973 establishments in England